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Special b is great. It adds a lot of sweetness and raisin/fig flavor. I used it and my dubble came out a bit too sweet, so use it sparingly. Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I made a Belgian Abby ale with 550 and it was great. Actually I was quite disappointed with the lack of character from my recent batch with 530, so I think you'll be ok here. 550 had more clove banana flavour. Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I'd say start with the latest version, the first recipe is too dark and roasty. I'm not sure about the oak, mine was not vanilla enough.

Just posting back, I did this recipe and added 8 oz special b. overall it's good, however the 180 syrup I too dark for the style, and the beer is a bit too sweet, even though the FG finished out nice and low. Next time I will cut the special B to 4 oz and use the D90 syrup instead. I also...

Well I tried the first version and it missed the mark. Way too dark. A friend tried the recipe posted from the I&G brewery and I think it was much closer. Still too dark but it had more vanilla flavor from the oak. If I try it again I'm going with the latter.

I'll be doing this as well. IMHO Belgians recipes should be very simple, relying on the yeast and fermentation for flavour depth. I will be adding the Special B, and doing a decoction as well for a bit of flavour depth.

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. A friend of mine tried the second recipe in the thread (I tried the first) and his version was much closer than mine, I'd say it was the same style of beer, if not an exact clone. Good luck with the latest attempt, I'll probably be trying this again in the fall.

Very nice, wish i could get the wife + friends to hang out while I brew.

Admittedly I'm new to this forum, and after reading AJ's response I went back as read a buck of posts ( his and others) and I have to agree with him, chasing targets will have you chasing your tail. Let us know how the beer turns out, and what your method is!

You could try using chalk (calcium carbonate) as well or instead of Calcium Chloride, or cutting it half and half. It'll raise the Bicarbonates more, not sure what you were targeting for it, but 151 seems low enough that you can get away with more. you'll need to add a couple grams to kick up...

I've found using RO and adding in premixed salt blends works great, but I wouldn't use just RO water. Keep in mind some RO systems don't work as well as others, and leave some minerals in the water, especially places where the source water is very hard.

Using RO (or distilled) water and adding in minerals is probably your most consistent bet. You could pick up water from the store, at least you don't have the up front costs of a home system, plus home systems don't do as good a job as the big commercial ones. That'd add about $5 per...

Water additions depend a great deal on what type of beer you are brewing as well. In general the darker the beer the more you will have to adjust if you use RO water. As Hebby5 said, the dark brown was great, but the pale was a bit off. You are looking for your local water's hardness, or...

Great thanks! 1/2 a cooler is about what I was looking for. I can't find the sweeteners you mentioned, only lactose. I'm a ways from startin on this, ill let you know when I try it.

Just wondering how sweet do you make it? I'm not familiar with the reference beer you were mentioning, can you compare to a fruit cooler? Other than that I like the look of this recipe a lot. Thanks for sharing!

Well months after bottling here's my results: My beer didn't carb up enough. The oak was okay, but not enough vanilla in there. Also the bitterness of the roast is too high, it doesn't let the caramel come through. Having said all that, it's still beer and it's still good. My abv is right on...

I'd say that recipe to posted the link to is probably accurate, the only thing I'd caution against is the water salts, as they would be adjusting the 'house' water, you really don't know what you'd be getting. A better bet would be to adjust your water as needed to a Edinburg profile, then...

I had my primary at 19c. I used chips and left them for thirteen days. right now it's been in a tertiary for 2 weeks. I'll let ya know what I think once it's bottled.

Thanks for the feedback! I had a sample and it's a very good beer right now, although the alcohol is a little on the hot side right now. Im very optimistic about the final product, the 'oak tea' I made to sanitize the chip smelled awesome. As for not using the roast barley, I actually use...

Well I finally gave this a go, it's been in the fermenter almost a week, I'll transfer to secondary and add the oak this weekend. A couple things, i added an extra pound of Maris Otter to make up for my Brew in a bag inefficiency, however it turned out I was much better than before. I expected...